The invention relates to equipment for recycling and disposal of used equipment, particularly consumer electronics and one-time-use cameras and more particularly relates to a derelict product cracker, cracker nest and method.
In some industries, manufacturers receive back from consumers, a stream of used products (also referred to herein as xe2x80x9cderelict productsxe2x80x9d) for recycling or appropriate disposal. Some legislative efforts have been directed toward mandating this approach for many consumer products. The returned products are often restored for consumer reuse. One-time-use cameras are recycled in this manner. The returned products can, alternatively, be recycled as raw material feedstocks or otherwise disposed of in a suitable manner.
Although it is preferred that returned products received are restored for later reuse, even under optimal conditions, not all post-consumer products received back in a post-consumer used products stream can be restored for reuse. Some returned products are excessively damaged for reuse. Other products may be modified in a manner that makes restoration impossible or impractical. The result is that at least a portion of the stream of returned products must be disposed of, preferably by reuse of as many parts as possible as chemical feedstocks and disposal of any residue in sanitary landfill or the like.
One type of approach to disposing of such products is crushing the products into small fragments and then separating the fragments. U.S. Pat. No. 6,300,402 discloses a method in which an electrical product is crushed repeatedly and air separators are then used to remove nonmetallic lightweight materials from heavier fragments. U.S. Pat. No. 5,217,171 discloses a method in which equipment is mechanically crushed to provide a mixture of particles, which are then subject to mechanical concentration by use of hydrocyclone, followed by recleaning, magnetic separation, and hydrometallurgical processing. U.S. Pat. No. 6,164,571 discloses a method for separating metals from thermoset plastics using high temperature and pressure and a solvent. U.S. Pat. No. 5,735,933 discloses a method involving crushing, screening by size of particle, heating to high temperatures, and then recovering metal and nonmetal vapors. These approaches can be effective, but are also energy intensive and difficult.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,103,721 discloses a simpler approach suitable for aluminum cans. The empty cans are stood, one at a time, in a chamber and to the top and bottom of the chamber are brought together squeezing the cans flat. The crushed cans are used as raw material feedstock. U.S. Pat. No. 5,333,542 discloses another apparatus in which aluminum cans are aligned, one at a time, and crushed from side-to-side rather than top-to-bottom. These approaches are simple, straightforward, and, in one form or another, widely used for simple products.
Common one-time-use cameras have a shell that covers and must be separated from an internal core for recycling. The shell generally has a pair of covers joined together along a longitudinal scene. A chassis, internal to the covers, provides additional structural support and other features. The separable core is typicaly a circuit board that can be part of the chassis or included with the chassis inside the shell.
One-time-use cameras are recycled by camera manufacturers by careful disassembly followed by testing and reuse of some parts, use of other parts for chemical feedstocks, and disposal of a small fraction of the camera parts. This approach is labor-intensive, but can be automated for returned products having uniform characteristics. Other returned products preclude automation due to damage or non-uniform characteristics.
Another approach to camera recycling, described in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,649,236 and 5,682,571, involves impacting the edge of the camera body against the edge of a table to effectively crack the camera open. This approach has sometimes been used during removal of exposed film from one-time-use cameras. The impacting on the table edge tends to cause major damage to internal components, which can include fragmenting of internal electrical components such as circuit boards. Similar results are seen if the cameras are compressed from side-to-side or end-to-end. The result is that much manual sorting is required to separate components and fragments and that it is more efficient to carefully open the cameras rather than crack them in this manner. Similar approaches to recycling raise similar issues for other manufactured products built with a core and shell structure. Examples of such products include most handheld consumer electronics, such as cellular telephones, audio players, calculators, and the like. A great many of these products are similar to common one-time-use cameras in another way; internal components are held together by the shell and will readily separating when the shell is removed.
It would thus be desirable to provide an improved cracking method, cracker, and cracker component in which a product shell is removed with a reduced risk of damage to or fragmentation of internal components of the product.
The invention is defined by the claims. The invention, in its broader aspects, provides a method, product cracker, and nest that are used with a derelict product having a shell covering a core. The shell has opposed front and rear faces and a sidewall having at least one pair of diagonally opposed corner-edges extending transversely between the faces, and is separable along the sidewall into a pair of covers. In the method, the front and rear faces of the product are placed in alignment with a first axis and the pair of diagonally opposed corner-edges are placed in alignment with a second axis perpendicular to the first axis. The shell is directly supported near one corner-edge of the pair of diagonally opposed corner-edges and is impacted at the other corner-edge with sufficient force to separate the covers. The alignments are maintained during the impacting. The covers and core are collected and the core is sorted out.
It is an advantageous effect of the invention that an improved cracking method, cracker, and cracker component are provided in which a product shell is separated with a reduced risk of damage to or fragmentation of internal components of the product.